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POP·IN Hack, Ann Arbor Art Center

POP·IN Hack, Ann Arbor Art Center

The five-person team of Vodo Jumato specializes in creative interactive video installation collaborative [CIVIC] actions that engage the public with moving image as an art form. The team members come together with individual ideas that blend together to form a larger project. My second event following joining the team in 2014 took place at the Ann Arbor Art Center on May 8th, 2015 and was entitled POP·IN Hack. The overall goal of this particular installation was to encourage community members to experience art in new ways.

The primary questions of my installation revolved around the way a patron experiences an art piece. Is the typical “Please do not touch” the right approach? Would a hands-on method better serve the experience, allowing each visitor to learn more about the pieces in question?

My installation motivated patrons to interact with a pre-existing Art Center piece by virtually painting over it. My .NET application detected user hands and gestures through Microsoft Kinect. It was then projected over a painting. Any drawing done on the application canvas was superimposed onto the painting giving an illusion that it was painted over. Paint colors came from those used in the art piece. Users were able to change the active color by closing their hands. The application then mapped the user’s hand’s physical location to a pixel’s coordinate; this is then used to grab the color data of a previously existing image of the painting.

Key Features

Kinect 2 detects user hands and gestures

An open hand behaves like a paint brush, allowing users to paint over the painting

A closed hand turns into an eyedropper, allowing users to sample color from the art piece